


Fallin'

by politics_and_prose



Series: All That Heaven Will Allow [5]
Category: Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-08-20 12:28:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16555769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/politics_and_prose/pseuds/politics_and_prose
Summary: David has three little words to say to Katherine.  Or four.  Or five, depending on how he says it.





	Fallin'

**Author's Note:**

> It's pretty much just unnecessary fluff and I'm not sorry about it.

David Jacobs was a planner.

Ever since he was a little kid, he liked to know what he was doing, how he was doing it, when the best time to do it would be and what happened after he did it. If he couldn’t figure out one of those things, he was unlikely to go through with whatever he’d planned on doing. 

With his goal in mind, he set about planning the perfect way to achieve it. All written, of course, so modifications could be tracked and remembered.

_#1 – What I’m doing: Telling Katherine I love her_.

That was the easy part, David assumed. Three little words. Well, four if he added her name. Five if he added her last name.

_I love you. I love you, Kath. I love you, Katherine. I love you, Katherine Plumber. I love you, Katherine Pulitzer._

One of those would surely work. He’d have it narrowed down before he actually confessed his love to her, he was certain.

_#2 – How I’m doing it:_ _With words, then actions (kiss, David, don’t get ahead of yourself)._

David knew he wanted to be looking into his girlfriend’s beautiful eyes when he told her he loved her for the first time. He’d been feeling it for so long he didn’t remember being with her and not, but he hadn’t been able to come up with a plan to tell her yet. That was all changing now.

It was a Saturday afternoon and he was stuck up at school because he started student teaching on Monday and he wanted to make sure all of his lesson plans were foolproof and ready for the children come Monday morning. Katherine had made a bit of a fuss, wanting to see him before his first day, but he’d assured her he would go directly to her office after work Monday. The school he was teaching at was in lower Manhattan anyway, so he would be staying in Jack’s apartment most of the week, which made it closer for him to be able to see her after hours.

Katherine had relented, saying she would go to the paper or follow up on some leads so that she didn’t have to put him off for “even a second” on Monday when he got to The Sun. He knew she was working on a story about midwives and how women were starting to use hospitals instead of home births, so he was glad to have a bit of distance. He liked statistics as much as the next academic but he didn’t need to know any of the ones she would have been spouting off as she researched if they were together.

Anyway.

David knew he was going to look deep into his girlfriend’s eyes, smile, maybe tuck her hair back if it was a little awry, and then tell her he loved her. And then he would kiss her – something he wasn’t even shy about doing in public anymore.

He considered it growth; Jack considered it “about goddamn time, Jacobs”.

_#3 – When I’m doing it: Next Saturday night._

Sarah had impressed upon him how important it was to remember anniversaries when in an adult relationship. He’d checked with his father, who told him that he really only needed to remember the big ones, like wedding, birthday, birth of kids.

Then he mixed up David and Les’ birthdays so he discarded his father’s advice immediately.

Saturday was six months from their first date. He thought six was a good, solid number, and that it was enough time for him to feel comfortable with the fact that he was in love with a woman for the first time. He also hoped it was enough time for her to feel it too.

David was pretty sure Katherine was in love with him, though she never said anything about it. He didn’t expect her to, either. As progressive as she was, David felt confident enough in saying that there were some things his girlfriend was old fashioned about, namely using “the L word” and sex.

Which David was fine with because he was old fashioned about those things too.

So David had convinced Jack to stay with Crutchie and Finch so that he could have the apartment for a romantic evening with Katherine with no interruptions. Jack had pouted and promised to stay in his room and not make any noise and only listen until “the first moan, I swear”, but David had been adamant. Jack, being such a great pal, had finally given in. 

_#4 – What happens after I tell her I love her:_

That was the one thing David couldn’t figure out or predict. Rejections haunted him every time he thought about telling her. He hoped that she would say the words back, kiss him and lead him to the couch for a little bit of “close time”, but he had no clue whether or not that would happen.

He ran through all of the different scenarios, good and bad, so many times that he wondered if he hadn’t already told her and one of them was what had really happened.

One: She tells him she loves him back and they smile and kiss for the rest of the night.

Two: She tells him she wants to be with him but she’s not ready to say she’s in love yet.

Three: She tells him she’s not in love with him and dumps him. 

Four: She slaps him.

Five: She laughs at him.

Six: He chickens out and doesn’t even tell her and/or he throws up.

Needless to say, not having an answer to Number Four was incredibly difficult for David, but he knew he needed to tell her. The words sat heavy on his tongue, almost slipping out every time she smiled at him or gave him a quick kiss or told him a really bad joke that she’d somehow gotten wrong.

There was no way he could wait any longer.

So with Numbers One through Three set, he decided to be optimistic and hope for the best and put his plan into action.

\--

David was exhausted as he made his way from the elementary school he’d taught at all day to The Sun. He smiled at Geraldine, pausing to let her know his first day had gone pretty well but fifteen kids were a lot to deal with at once, and then headed to the elevator. He handed the kid a quarter and rode up to the tenth floor in silence.

“Thanks, pal,” he said to the kid, handing him another quarter before exiting the elevator and navigating his way through the corridors to Katherine’s office.

When he got there, she wasn’t in, but Eleanor told him that her editor had called her in for a quick meeting. “You’re welcome to just have a seat,” she told him with a smile. “She shouldn’t be long. She raised cane when Mr. Gordon called her in. Quite the spitfire, our Miss Plumber.”

"That she is,” he said with a fond smile. “Wouldn’t have her any other way.”

David made his way into Katherine’s office and took a seat in one of the chairs off to the side. He’d been there dozens of times, but never alone. Unable to stay still, his body still tingling from having taught a full class of second graders all day, he stood and made his way over to the wall where she had some of her articles framed. 

First, he read one about Medda’s theater and the fight that had broken out between a couple of guys from the Bronx who were both dating one of the Beauties. Kath hated that she’d been sent to cover it but she’d made a friend for life in Beverly, the Beauty in question. He was pretty sure they met once a week for coffee and gossip, though she would never confirm or deny it.

Next, he moved to an article on safety at the docks. While Spot worked in Brooklyn, he knew some of the guys who worked in Manhattan and had set her up with some pretty good interviews. Never one to be impartial, Katherine had laid out all of the safety concerns and had pretty much pled within the article with the politicians to implement higher safety standards. She, of course, got her way. Spot bought her a beer after that and she’d sipped it then immediately pushed it over to him, a sour look on her face. Their friend’s grin told them he was aiming for that all along.

He saw one about a fire that had destroyed a tenement building, thankfully not near his family home, one about the budding suffragette movement, and finally, his favorite.

It still shocked him to see his younger self smiling on the front page of a newspaper, but it made him feel warm nevertheless. When he’d started working as a newsboy, he never imagined what it would do for him, both in terms of his confidence and social skills. His best friends were made during a strike he initially didn’t want to be part of; he also met the woman he would fall in love with thanks to his wild and untamable best friend and that strike.

Back then he had been scared. Today, he knew that those were some of the best days of his life.

“I’m so sorry!”

David turned around to see Katherine hurry into the room, necktie slightly askew and cheeks blushed pink from where she had obviously been rushing down the hall. She was so beautiful that he had to take a deep intake of breath to remind himself to breathe. 

“Mr. Gordon came in ten minutes ago and told me he was leaving for a week and he wanted to review my story about childbirth in the hospital and give me the contact of a woman he knows who’s planning on going to the hospital to give birth and to steer me in the right direction for what kind of questions are appropriate to ask a pregnant woman and then he wanted to ask me if I would be willing to do a story on that police officer who was found guilty of smuggling and we kind of went off on a tangent about that and the next thing I knew, it was now and you should have been here so I came back.” He blinked at her, smiling fondly, and she took a deep breath in an attempt to regulate her breathing; all of what she’d said after “sorry” had been in one breath.

His heart started pounding quickly, echoing in his ears, as he watched her gather herself. She started talking again, asking him how his first day went, a bright, eager smile on her face. David could only stare at her, though, marveling at this beautiful, wild, incredible woman who had somehow deigned him fit to be part of her life.

“David? Darling, are you okay?”

“I love you.”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he snapped back to reality. His eyes widened and he covered his lips in something akin to horror. That was absolutely not how that was supposed to have gone.

“No. Wait. I – wait a second. Don’t – don’t say anything. Don’t respond to that. I wasn’t – that wasn’t supposed to happen,” he stammered out, his heart beating frantically in his chest, though now for an entirely different reason.

“Excuse me?” she asked, her voice rigid. “Did you just tell me you love me and tell me it wasn’t supposed to happen?”

David could tell that she was incredulous and bordering on angry but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. “I just need you to pretend you didn’t hear that,” he begged. “Just – please. I didn’t mean to say it.”

“So you don’t love me?”

Katherine’s voice was level and collected and David was absolutely terrified about answering that question incorrectly.

“No. I mean yes. Or … no? I don’t know which way I’m supposed to answer that,” he rushed out. “But I do. Y’know, I do feel that way. About you. I just … wasn’t supposed to say it right now.”

She stared at him for a minute, arms crossed over her chest and eyebrow lifted as she waited for more of an explanation. He didn’t have one, though. All he had was the knowledge that he had planned something special and ruined it before he could even set things in motion.

“What do you mean you weren’t supposed to say it right now?” she questioned. “Were you supposed to say it another time?” A pause, then a slow grin formed on her beautiful lips. “You had a _plan_.”

Frowning, he crossed his arms over his chest. “Don’t say it like that. My plans are good. It was a good plan.”

“Obviously not,” she laughed, her posture loosening significantly. “Because you didn’t really follow through on it.”

“I couldn’t help it! You were just – and then you – and you’re _so beautiful_. I was gonna –“ He groaned and fell into the chair once more. “I was supposed to tell you on Saturday on our anniversary because I wanted it to be special and not – not whatever _that_ was.”

Smiling, Katherine moved over and slid herself into his lap. Shaking her head slightly, a fond smile on her lips, she tilted his head up to kiss him lightly. “There’s no one like you in the world, David Jacobs,” she told him. “Only you would think that spontaneously telling me you love me instead of following whatever script you had written out would be a bad thing.”

“I wanted it to be perfect,” he told her and he knew she would describe it as him pouting but he _wasn’t_. He just didn’t like not following through on his plans.

“It was,” she promised him before giving him another soft kiss. “It was the best thing I’ve ever heard.”

David’s hand moved to her hip after hovering over her thigh for a split second – _we’re in her office, not the apartment,_ he reminded himself – and he looked up at her. “Yeah?” he asked quietly. “It was – it was okay?”

“Perfect,” she promised. “Only one thing would have made it more perfect.”

Frowning, he asked, “Such as?”

“You not freaking out so I could tell you I love you too.”

He blinked once, twice, looking up into her eyes and seeing the sincerity there. A wide grin broke out on his face and he laughed, feeling the flush rise to his cheeks. “I did freak out a little, didn’t I?”

“You did,” she agreed, laughing with him. “But that’s okay. You wouldn’t be the man I love if you hadn’t.”

“You really love me?”

“I really love you,” Katherine agreed softly, her hands moving up to cup his cheeks. “Even if you’re really bad at executing plans that you spend way too much time on.”

He chuckled and lifted his chin so he could kiss her smiling lips. They stayed there for a few minutes, content to just be close and let the feeling of acknowledged love wash over them. 

“How about I wrap up and we go grab something to eat?” she suggested. “Then maybe head back to your place for a little while?”

David nodded and held her hand as she slid from his lap. “Good idea. We can go to that new place that just opened up. With the seafood.”

“Oooh, fancy,” she said teasingly as she moved to her desk to get all of her papers in order. “Mr. Teacher’s gonna take his girl out for a romantic dinner?”

“Let’s go celebrate,” he agreed with a grin, standing and heading towards the door. “And, hey! Another anniversary to add to the list!”

He didn’t turn back but he heard Katherine groan and mutter something about killing his sister for putting the idea of anniversaries in his head. Chuckling to himself, he decided he would put together a foolproof plan to show her just how much fun it could be to keep track of all of their anniversaries, big and small.

 


End file.
